Voices of Midlife Tomboys: A Narrative Study
type: CreativeWork
description: Women's lives have been increasingly researched in the last thirty years, offering greater understanding of their roles and relationships within our patriarchal culture. It is now readily understood that adolescence tends to mute the positive sense of self and authentic voice of young girls in our current culture, and midlife tends to relax these restrictions, allowing self and voice to emerge once again. Many women in their middle years rediscover the spirited, independent, and competent identity left behind when they accepted cultural restrictions to conform to a world that was not of their own making. In spite of the increased knowledge about women's lives, however, virtually no studies have concentrated on the cultural experiences of tomboy women. Tomboys have been defined as cultural rebels for over six centuries, yet their personal stories have not been studied to identify their patterns of acceptance or resistance to social restrictions. The purpose of this study was to gather and analyze narratives of the historical events and challenges of ten midlife heterosexual tomboy women in an effort to better understand their life choices. The four original questions were organized around the specific life events of being childhood tomboys, navigating adolescence, selecting careers, and experiencing midlife. This qualitative research method involved a reflective narrative process which encouraged personal life stories to emerge in three ways: oral interviews, individual selection of a photograph or creative art piece that reflected how they felt about having lived their lives as tomboys, and written description interpreting their representative art. These stories were then woven into themes in an effort to create a mosaic of their common experiences. The portraits that emerged from this study supported cultural tomboy traditions of independence and a refusal to be squelched either physically or mentally. Their childhoods were free and independent, but adolescence was…
abstract: Women's lives have been increasingly researched in the last thirty years, offering greater understanding of their roles and relationships within our patriarchal culture. It is now readily understood that adolescence tends to mute the positive sense of self and authentic voice of young girls in our current culture, and midlife tends to relax these restrictions, allowing self and voice to emerge once again. Many women in their middle years rediscover the spirited, independent, and competent identity left behind when they accepted cultural restrictions to conform to a world that was not of their own making. In spite of the increased knowledge about women's lives, however, virtually no studies have concentrated on the cultural experiences of tomboy women. Tomboys have been defined as cultural rebels for over six centuries, yet their personal stories have not been studied to identify their patterns of acceptance or resistance to social restrictions. The purpose of this study was to gather and analyze narratives of the historical events and challenges of ten midlife heterosexual tomboy women in an effort to better understand their life choices. The four original questions were organized around the specific life events of being childhood tomboys, navigating adolescence, selecting careers, and experiencing midlife. This qualitative research method involved a reflective narrative process which encouraged personal life stories to emerge in three ways: oral interviews, individual selection of a photograph or creative art piece that reflected how they felt about having lived their lives as tomboys, and written description interpreting their representative art. These stories were then woven into themes in an effort to create a mosaic of their common experiences. The portraits that emerged from this study supported cultural tomboy traditions of independence and a refusal to be squelched either physically or mentally. Their childhoods were free and independent, but adolescence was…
author: Secrist, Jan, EdD
keywords: gender, Leadership studies, middle aged, narrative study, qualitative, tomboy, women
date published: 1996-01-01T08:00:00Z
date modified: 2026-07-24T05:41:10Z
provider: University of San Diego
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of San Diego